Heart of Black Ice

CHAPTER 49

Alone inside the evacuated main alcove, Prelate Verna watched the battle at the bottleneck mouth of the canyon where Nathan, General Zimmer, and their determined force stood ready to hold off the invading army. Verna admired their confidence, and Nathan often proved stronger than she ever imagined. He had escaped from the Palace of the Prophets after a thousand years, and he had removed his own iron collar, the Rada’Han, which should never have been possible. Since that time, he had done great works, achieved amazing success.

As she mused about her days long ago at the palace, Verna also thought of Warren, the studious and warmhearted scholar who had captured her heart. She had loved him so much. She tried not to think of how he’d been killed fighting the armies of the Imperial Order. That loss had nearly destroyed her.

Once she and Warren had finally found each other, Verna wanted a lifetime with him, but their time as real lovers was tragically cut short. It was so unfair. She chose to savor the precious memories of what they actually had, rather than grieve for the time they didn’t. Even though years had passed, she still missed him. How different her life would have been, if only …

As the wind whistled along the cliffside, she stepped to the edge of the alcove and looked down to the stream running through the canyon, saw some scattered white sheep grazing aimlessly with no shepherds to tend them. Other cliff dwellings were empty, and she hoped the evacuated people would all be safe. If by some miracle Nathan and the defenders managed to hold the opening and drive away the invading army, perhaps the people could return.

She recalled that she, Renn, and a small group of people had succeeded in triggering the massive avalanches below Kol Adair, wiping out ten thousand of the ancient soldiers in a single sweep. Nathan, all the powerfully gifted men and women from Ildakar, her Sisters of the Light, as well as the trained scholars and D’Haran soldiers could do no less! Maybe they would succeed after all.

But Verna was too pragmatic to believe that, despite Nathan’s confidence, they could hold the wall permanently against the army’s assault. She knew what had to happen, and she was ready.

The deserted canyon was so empty and silent that Verna felt herself lulled into a brief moment of security. Swallows flitted about, tending their mud nests in small pockets in the rock, chirping and singing. She allowed herself a smile and relished the calm, but knew it wouldn’t last.

From outside the canyon she heard the roar and shouts, the clang of weapons as General Utros slammed into the first line of defenses and traps. The D’Haran troops formed a solid barrier just inside the bottleneck. Nathan and his gifted companions spread out facing the wall. Even this far away, high up on the cliff face, Verna could feel the tension in the air.

When the first lines of enemy soldiers broke through the bottleneck, the magic was truly unleashed, on both sides. Shock waves rumbled through the narrow canyon opening, and the rock shuddered and splintered, sloughing down from both sides. The first ranks of invaders flowed through the gap like a pack of wolves.

Shading her eyes, Verna watched Nathan summon balls of wizard’s fire, which he hurled into the oncoming enemy. The angry flames mowed down countless ancient warriors. Thorn and Lyesse raced about like stinging wasps, stabbing, ducking away, stabbing someone else.

The eight Sisters of the Light raised walls of air and bowled the soldiers back, impaling them on the swords of their own comrades. The gifted Cliffwall scholars, trained in only a few spells, broke more rock shards from the cliffs above and sent them raining down. Olgya summoned thick tendrils of mist, a shapeless mass of fog that blinded the soldiers as they charged forward, and she followed through with targeted lightning, wiping out dozens of the enemy. Perri transformed patches of the ground into quicksand, miring the first line of invaders.

But for every ten they killed, a hundred more broke through. The invaders were like an ocean wave that battered against the shore. The D’Haran soldiers met them with furious resistance. Zimmer bellowed commands and dove into the fray, not afraid to risk himself.

Isolated in the alcove high above, with all the silent archive buildings behind her, Verna clenched her fist and despaired at what she saw. The forces of General Utros kept coming, an endless stream through the blasted bottleneck, hundreds at a time. Even if most of the first wave died, they would eventually flood the canyon and overwhelm all resistance through sheer force of numbers.

She had known this would happen. She had warned Nathan, yet they still insisted on this last stand. It was good not to give up hope, but it was also good not to be foolish.

She knew it would be her turn soon. She listened to the echoing sounds of battle down below, the shouts of command, screams of pain, explosions and rockfall, the clash of blades. With a pang, she wished Warren could be here to help her. The two of them could have made a grand accounting of themselves.

Verna had memorized the Weeping Stone spell. Standing in front of the imposing structures crowded in the alcove, she looked at the ruin of the melted prophecy building. Now she meant to do the same to the entire cliffside and engulf the enemy army with a tidal wave of stone. But Nathan and the surviving defenders had to retreat to safety in time, as did she.

She got ready to do what needed to be done. With her gift she could trace the pattern of the spell-form laid down across the cliffside and in the tunnels, an intricate cat’s cradle of connected webs, fields built upon collapsing fields, all waiting for her to tug on the first line of magic that would unravel the whole thing and set in motion a chain reaction to destroy the dangerous knowledge stored in the archive.

“You will never have this place, Utros,” Verna vowed to herself. Once she triggered the spell, she would climb to safety at the top of the mesa above, using ladders and footholds installed for that purpose, and from there she would make her way to the rendezvous point. The others would also fall back to the highlands, where they would regroup.

Greasy black smoke mixed with a camouflage fog, rising from below after Nathan immolated more attackers with another round of wizard’s fire. Ranks of the ancient army still hammered through the blasted bottleneck. Verna spotted the distinctive horned helmet of General Utros and the pale sorceress riding beside him as they emerged through the thick tendrils of mist. They let thousands of shock troops surge ahead of them, and the renewed surge broke the defensive lines, pushed the gifted fighters and the D’Haran troops back.

“It is time for you to go, Nathan,” Verna whispered, as if she could communicate with him by mere thought. “Go! Now!”

Reaching the same conclusion, Zimmer raised his sword and called the retreat. Fortunately, he was a wise tactical commander and had planned for the inevitable. She heard his shout ring out as clearly as a sword strike. “Fall back to the far end of the canyon!”

The D’Haran soldiers fought for a few more moments, wanting to kill a last enemy warrior or two. The two morazeth each tried to increase their score of victims. But a dozen of the Cliffwall defenders had already fallen, and they couldn’t afford more losses.

Giving them a chance to fall back, Nathan spread out a raging wall of wizard’s fire, smearing his spell into an incandescent swath that incinerated the advancing enemy line. But as soon as the magical flames dissipated, the next wave rushed in, trampling the bodies of their fallen comrades.

Once the starving invaders saw the green valley enclosed by high rock walls, the orchards, the sheep, and the lush gardens, they raged forward, suddenly desperate in a different way. Nathan, General Zimmer, and the remaining defenders retreated in a straight line to the rear of the canyon and the steep trails up to the highlands. With nothing to stop them now, the enemy army flowed forward and spread out like an angry swarm of bees.

From her vantage, Verna watched the armed horde advance into the protected canyon. She knew that their last defenses had fallen, and even the faintest chance of victory was gone. It was time for her to do what she had known all along. She drew a deep breath to calm herself, let it out slowly, inhaled another. She imagined Warren’s warm presence with her, giving her strength.

The prelate pressed her palm against the stone alcove wall. Though she had shown no hesitation in front of Nathan, she was indeed intimidated by the Weeping Stone spell. Thousands of years ago, the world’s most powerful wizards had created it, experts much wiser and more adept than any prelate of the Sisters of the Light.

That spell now would be her final solution. Her gift allowed her to sense the prismatic grains of sorcerer’s sand at the proper key points. She could feel the webs she had constructed throughout the archive, every anchor poised in the most delicate of balances. She didn’t dare trigger the magic too soon, because she needed Nathan and the others to get away, and once the spell began to work, she would scramble up above the alcove and climb to safety.

She watched the defenders race along the canyon below, running for their lives. They spread out and darted into side canyons or ran up steep fissures, making their way to higher ground. They had all drilled exhaustively beforehand and knew exactly what to do. Some of the ancient soldiers pursued them, but the bulk of the attacking force swelled beneath the towering, inaccessible archive—their main goal. Like a conquering hero, General Utros rode on his black stallion through his own soldiers and turned his horned helmet to look up at the great alcove high up on the cliff.

Even from such a distance, Verna met his gaze, she was sure of it. “I will not let you have this place.” She closed her eyes, touched her gift, tugged on the connected webs and lines of force that ran through the cliffs. “I weep for the stone to weep.” Tears glistened in her eyes for all the knowledge that was about to be lost.

She ignited the sorcerer’s sand, connected the nodes in her web, which sent streaks of fire through the rock and across the open air, which connected the points in the elaborate spell-form that she and Nathan had designed. Once she launched the spell, the power surged, bounced, ricocheted like a released spring. She smiled: the spell would complete its work now, no matter what happened.

When the hard stone of the alcove wall softened and turned to clay against her fingertips, she knew it was time to leave. Lines of transformation shot through the cliff, disassembling the mineral structure. Rumbling sounds came from deeper inside the mesa as tunnels collapsed and filled, but the main reshaping of stone happened here on the outer wall.

Verna ran to the wooden ladder that had been mounted against the cliff wall, leading to handholds and ledges above the alcove mouth. She heard a dripping, rumbling sound, and the glorious buildings inside the grotto wavered. Their foundations liquefied, and the structures themselves toppled over like huge trees felled by a woodcutter. The bricks and stone blocks broke apart and spat out into the air like broken teeth, tumbling into one another. The outer cliff wall began to flow like wax as the hard rock became mud, slumping down in tears of stone. The vaulted alcove opening began to droop down like a swollen eyelid.

Verna scrambled up the ladder, climbing above the overhang. The wooden rungs were still solid, unaffected by the spreading spell, but the end of the ladder sank into the buttery stone, making the steps slanted and unstable. The change was happening faster than she expected. The already-ruined prophecy building vanished entirely, buried as the roof of the alcove flowed over the top of it.

She pulled herself higher, above the mouth of the alcove, and paused to watch the canyon wall slump down below her. A stone wave flowed onto the first enemy soldiers, and the triumphant roar of the invading army turned into howls of dismay. They tried to flee, but could not escape the liquid rock that washed over them.

Reaching the top rung of the ladder, Verna stretched her arm and pulled herself up with the stone handholds dug into the cliff. She found a stable place for her foot. As she climbed toward the top of the plateau and safety, the spell continued building, cascading throughout the cliff. Inside the mesa, the numerous vaults of magical lore had filled in, and all the tunnels inside were erased. The countless shelves of books were now like ancient fossil bones embedded in stone.

Verna laughed with relief as the sloughing sound rose to a deafening roar. She had succeeded! It was enough. The swelling magic rang throughout her body and she pulled on the gift to find the connected webs, ready to pull the Weeping Stone spell to a halt. The sorcerer’s sand anchored the key angles of the spell-form, but as the cliff collapsed, their positions shifted and swallowed the powerful grains, muffled by layers of stone. The precise pattern was disrupted.

The spell was like a monster that had broken loose.

Alarmed, Verna clenched her teeth and used her gift to strain against the unraveling webs like a rider trying to rein in a wild horse. In an odd displaced moment, she remembered how Richard Rahl had taught her to use a much kinder bit on her horse, which made the animal easier to control. Richard had cared about the horses as much as he cared about other people. She had learned so much from Richard.… But he wasn’t here to help her now.

The Weeping Stone spell expanded rather than diminishing, as it was supposed to. Verna had acted as a catalyst and released the power pent up inside the ancient archive, and now the destructive magic grew like a conflagration.

As she held on and wrestled with the uncontrollable spell, a shimmering image swooped up in the air next to her, the sickly green form of the sorceress Ava. “I see your spell!” her hollow voice cried, rising to a shriek. “You will not stop the general.”

Verna held on to the cliff handholds, knowing that the intangible spirit could do little to harm her directly. Ava hovered closer, intimidating, trying to terrify the prelate. “I cannot let you do this!”

But Verna was not easily terrified. As the spell continued to roar, bringing down the cliffside, she thrashed the air with her free hand, trying to drive the spirit away, but Ava filled her vision, disoriented her.

The Weeping Stone spell thrashed and writhed, and Verna’s attention slipped. Ava drew away her focus at a critical point.

Having climbed above the alcove to the stable rock, Verna thought she was safely away from the destruction, but to her dismay the cliffs above her began to collapse as well, far beyond what should have been the boundary of the spell. “No, this isn’t possible!”

The cliff poured down to bury the ranks of the enemy army. A flood of stone paved over thousands of soldiers who rode through the canyon below.

Ava made one last brash attack in the prelate’s face, a mirage with only a breath of tangible form. But as the walls collapsed in a wholesale disaster, the spirit cried out in dismay and vanished, swooping down toward General Utros.

Verna strained upward to reach a point where she could hold on and fight back, where she could stop the melting stone. She climbed several body lengths higher, but her foothold slipped away like a slurry of mud. The rocky knob in her hand became as soft as butter.

And she fell.

She dropped down the cliff face, clawing for a handhold in a mudslide. Her fingers caught in the soft stone, and she dug in up to her knuckles, but her weight dragged her down, and she gouged long furrows in the stone.

Verna attempted to use her gift to arrest her fall, still trying to dampen the overall spell. Despite all her reassurances to Nathan about being able to handle the power she unleashed, the connected webs and interlinked fields escaped her control. She sank and rolled in the liquefied rock.

With a last burst of magic, she deflected the fields and paused the spell so that the flowing rock hardened around her lower legs. But that did no good. She was trapped in a fist of stone, hanging upside down just above the canyon floor, where she watched more of the armored soldiers die.

She couldn’t break free, but the cliff kept melting. Stone sloshed around her until finally Verna was buried in a wave that petrified around her.

Her last thoughts were filled with hope that her spirit would at last be reunited with Warren’s beyond the veil, and they would have all eternity together.